Downtown LA Building avoids collapse after large fire

Fire crews worked late Wednesday night to put out a blaze in a boarded up building in downtown Los Angeles Wednesday night. 

Reports of the fire in the building in the 200 block of East 3rd Street came in just after 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. The three-story building was boarded up. 

LAFD declared the fire a major emergency structure fire just after 8 p.m. Crews eventually controlled the fire around 11:30 p.m.

About 135 firefighters battled the fire Wednesday night. The building avoided a collapse, but crews are red-tagging it, LAFD said.

According to fire officials, heat from the fire has spread to the five-story building next door and one unit in that building caught fire, but the building's sprinkler system has kept it from spreading further.

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Aerial footage from SkyFox showed at least eight ladders at one point shooting water to fight the fire.

It was not immediately clear what led to the fire.

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